Teachers’ union to launch ad campaign denouncing new state exams

New York State United Teachers will launch an advertising program Wednesday denouncing new standardized tests that the union claims contains material students haven’t been taught.

The state implemented new Common Core standards, a challenging curricula for math and English, this year, and students in third through eighth grade will take the more difficult exams next month. In an advertisement, NYSUT alleges that the state Education Department has failed at implementing the standards, leaving students wildly unprepared for the tests.

Education Commissioner John King has said the state expects test scores to plummet—possibly by 30 percent compared to last year—and that teachers would not be held responsible for the lower grades in their evaluations. King has argued the state is “raising the bar” in order to help more kids be college- and career-ready by high school graduation.

The ad, designed as an “open letter” from NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi, said a recent statewide survey showed two-thirds of teachers said their students don’t have books and materials aligned with the new Common Core standards.

“No experienced teacher would test students on material before it’s been taught—and yet that’s the scenario the state has created in its rush to roll out new standardized tests,” Iannuzzi wrote in the letter. “As recently as last month, the state was still rolling out materials and instructions on Common Core, while expecting students to have mastered new curriculum by April.”

The Common Core curriculum was made up by corporations to make money, not to educate kids or help teachers improve themselves. Why wouldn’t the NYSUT union spend some money blasting the Common Core standards and tests that don’t mean anything. Do parents really think standardized testing is important? Can they explain what standardized testing and standardization is? The idea behind the Common Core was to imagine a student at age 18 that some corporation would want to see as college ready and move the standards downward from 18 to preschool. Most people know that people are born first and it takes 18 years to grow. The authors of these standards do not know childhood development, do not care and aren’t really concerned how students do. It is important for students and teachers to fail to close school and privatize as much of the school system as possible using public money for profits.

In another Politics post we read that Hollywood is getting $420 million a year from NYS tax breaks….

Sure Hollywood needs $420 million a year from NYS taxpayers while we have no Spanish speaking teachers in NYC schools so students dont learn and while we have no curriculum books for the Common Core Standards teaching material in most of the districts including the majority of the NYC schools.
Sure Hollywood needs our taxes.
While the highways are not lit (when was the last time the lights on the Taconic at the Valhalla station were actually lit)